


Well That Escalated Quickly

by DontKillAnybody



Category: Big Hero 6
Genre: Look everyone has speaking parts this time!, M/M, NotBrothers!AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 11:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4520754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontKillAnybody/pseuds/DontKillAnybody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hiro is Fred's friend. Hiro is the Nerd Gang's friend.<br/>Tadashi is Fred's friend. Tadashi is NOT Hiro's friend.</p><p>And he never will be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Well That Escalated Quickly

Two blankets, one lawn-chair-turned-throne, a huge projector screen, and more popcorn than ingestible meant the newest Friday Movie Bash was shaping up to be pretty darn spectacular. Fred’s backyard had been set up like a drive-in movie minus the car. The projector screen was dangling in front of the entrance to the pavilion and the marble statues had been wrapped with Christmas lights to provide some light in the otherwise dark garden.

The only problem was the number of attendees: **6**. One too many people taking up _his_ space and _his_ time and it was driving Hiro nuts.

“Nuts?”

“Huh?” Hiro looked up from angrily fiddling with the fraying ends of his blue hoodie to get a face full of Fred, whose cheeks could rival any chipmunk at that moment.

He swallowed before offering the bowl of Chex mix again. “No peanuts this time, I swear. Ate them all myself.” “

I helped!” Wasabi yelled from where he was straightening the edges of the second blanket. Gogo toed the corner opposite where he was working experimentally before Honey tugged on her arm to get her away.

Hiro pushed the bowl away with a comical grimace. “If I decide to chance a ride to the hospital, I’ll let you know. We can take the helicopter.”

“Deal.” Fred tipped the bowl over his mouth and crunched down on the resulting cascade of food. He wiped his mouth on the Deadpool blanket draped regally around his shoulders before holding the bowl out again. “Tadashi! Come on man, snack it up!”

And there, finally exiting Fred’s opulent mansion, was the worst thing Hiro had ever seen. An interloper of the innocent kind, with the nerve to actually try making friends with the rest of them when he CLEARLY didn’t belong.

“Want to sit with us, Tadashi?” Honey wasn’t making the point Hiro had hoped she would. Not that Honey could ever be outright MEAN, except for that one guy at the club a week ago who went home with a stiletto-sized hole in his foot, but still. She could at least make an effort to set this guy straight and keep him 274850846 feet away from their group. HIRO’S group. He’d spent 18 years building it and he wasn’t going to let it go without a fight. A little frowning, a little sneer, an off-handed comment about how great their friendship was. He’d been doing it since Fred had opened the door and had seen Tadashi standing somewhat awkwardly in the foyer, following Fred around like a lost dog.

“No, but thank you. I think I’ll—”

“Stay by my side? Good thinking there,” Fred winked at Tadashi before dragging him over to the bedazzled and sticker-covered lawn chair. “The chair’s mine but if your butt gets sore from missing out on the opportunity to sit in this rad seat then I guess I could scoot over.” 

“Thanks Fred, you’re just as chummy as I remember,” Tadashi plopped down on the blanket next to the chair and leaned back, catching Hiro’s eye for a second and smiling.

His mouth twitched for a moment before reneging on the mutinous motion and staying in a flat line until Tadashi looked back to Fred.

“Hey, I’m a giver. If you need my chair then it’s yours. The shirt off my back? It’d be a pleasure. Food? Sure, unless it’s invisible food. Then I’m gonna have to call dibs on that.”

“If I find any, consider it yours.”

Fred gave a whoop and crashed into his special chair, sending a burst of pretzels and cereal into the grass. Heathcliff appeared with a small trashcan in moments.

“The movie you requested is ready, Master Frederick.”

“Thanks, Heathcliff. Let’s get this show started!”

Honey squealed and grabbed Gogo and Wasabi’s shoulders, dragging the two of them down onto the other blanket with her, a bowl of Cheetos coming dangerously close to being upended in her excitement. The resulting ridges in the fabric caught Wasabi’s attention, who tried to stand again only to find he was shackled to the ground courtesy of a stubborn girl on either wrist.

“It’ll just take me a second—!”

“Can it, Wasabi.”

“Just enjoy the movie! Look,” Honey smoothed out the larger bumps, “You can’t even see them.”

“It would be easier to enjoy on a completely flat surface.”

“Eat a Snickers.” Gogo shoved the bar of candy in his mouth before he could protest again. “You’re too much like yourself when you’re hungry.”

The screen in front of the group flickered to life as the projector began to whir in the background. Hiro lowered himself next to Tadashi, trying to even out the numbers for Wasabi’s sake. Plus, if he left for the other island now, Fred would come after him with questions and cajoles and his reeking snack breath. The first advertisement to come into view was oddly familiar, and Hiro was certain he’d seen it before. The second one was the same. Had Fred pulled out an old movie? Why would he do that?

He almost got whiplash from how quickly he turned to look at Tadashi and how fast he had to turn back. Hiro could feel the stranger’s eyes on him, alongside the crick in his neck, but he kept his eyes trained on the screen. There was an ugly ache in his jaw from how hard he was pressing his teeth together and a wrinkle between his eyebrows he could actually feel, but none of that mattered compared to the travesty he was witnessing.

A repeat. Of a _MOVIE NIGHT_.

Childhood friend of Fred’s or not, nobody deserved such special treatment when the whole group was involved. Tadashi didn’t belong with the rest of them and he certainly shouldn’t matter enough to dictate rewatching _Five Nights at Freddy's 2: The Movie_. It hadn’t been good last week and another showing was almost enough to guarantee Hiro’s brain would be latching onto everything around him instead of the creepy animatronics. There it was already: a steady crunch-crunch line of sound from Fred’s snack bowl, the whispers of Honey and Gogo chatting very literally behind Wasabi’s back, the loud and steady intakes of breath from Tadashi—

Tadashi, who had his legs crossed almost painfully and both hands laced in front of his mouth. Tadashi, with his dark eyes wide and hyper-focused on the scene in front of him. Tadashi, whose nostrils flared with every strangled hyperventilation.

Whatever semblance of an attention span Hiro had evaporated. Why would he spend an hour and 47 minutes staring into the jaws of death when he could snicker at Fred’s scaredy-cat old buddy? And boy was there a lot to laugh at.

Tadashi’s shoulders would tense up at every crescendo in the background music only to lower themselves slowly until the jumpscare. After the fifth time though, he kept them pinched together permanently. The movement of his blue striped cardigan was almost hypnotizing, in the way it was constantly adjusting. Not to mention the godawful hat he was wearing depicting the San Fransokyo Ninjas insignia. He looked like any other naïve tourist in town for the weekend. Which he was, but normally Hiro would just charge them a dollar extra on their lunch bill at the Lucky Cat instead of sitting less than a foot away and reveling in their fear.

Halfway through the movie, a spray of chips and baby breadsticks found their way into his hair, courtesy of Fred. Hiro dusted the snacks out of his hair accidentally-on-purpose into Tadashi’s lap, which he should really be thanking him for since it gave the guy a reprieve from staring shell-shocked at the screen, and shot Fred a dirty look. Fred just widened his eyes and looked down at Tadashi multiple times. What about him? Was this the signal for the sacrifice? This whole dreary and interrupted night was just an elaborate prank on the poor schmuck?

Fred refused to answer the unaired questions and stuffed another handful of food in his mouth, continuing to flicker his vision back and forth between Hiro and his friend.

Hiro rolled his eyes and rotated around so he was facing the screen. Whatever Fred was trying to tell him, it wasn’t coming through. And he’d already been caught staring like a creeper. Once was enough.

………No. Once was clearly NOT enough. How was he supposed to be expected to sit through the same movie as last week? Even Aunt Cass switched it up so he was lucky if they watched the same romcom in the same _year_. Hiro’s vision slid from the screen until he was watching Tadashi again and all his little twitches, now including gnawing on his knuckles for added cannibalistic flavor.

Oh god, he just grossed himself out and bile is extra horrible when all you’ve eaten since breakfast is your friend’s seemingly endless supply of sweets.

That was his next half hour: watching Tadashi chew his knuckles and bite his thumb and do this thing where he squeezes his hands together until they turn white before letting them go and cycling through the whole process again. Even so, his eyes never left the movie, never really closed. His blinks were slow, like when a cat finally decides it likes you and never looks away. Except this was a disgusting infringement on friendship instead of a friendly feline companion.

When the credits rolled and Hiro was back to paying attention to everything around him, it was with dull surprise that he found himself in the same position as Tadashi: knees pulled to his chin and arms wrapped protectively around his legs. He wasn’t putting himself in a death-grip of course, but that was a minor difference. He untangled his limbs in time for Fred to stand up and start clapping with gusto, snack bowl forgotten in the now salty folds of his blanket.

“Possessed robots are awesome,” Fred sniffed, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “And I know my man Tadashi enjoyed it, right?” He wiggled his eyebrows and made a few fingerguns for emphasis.

Tadashi managed a small smile when he finally tore his gaze from the screen. “Yeah, it was awesome, Fred. Just like all those times when we were kids and you had way too much fun scaring me.”

“Looks like nothing’s changed, bro.” He clapped him on the back and bent down to pick the blanket up. “Shall we head in guys? Heathcliff, are those—”

“The pizza rolls are prepared as per your request.”

“Thanks, Heathcliff! Ladies? Wasabi? Let’s take this show inside.”

“Just a second, Fred!” Honey Lemon and Gogo were standing off to the side as Wasabi fiddled with the edges of their blanket, smoothing down the rumples in the fabric.

Wasabi patted down the last corner and turned back with a proud smile on his face. “I’m just making sure we leave things neat,” he said, joining the two girls in their walk towards Fred. When they reached Hiro, Gogo pulled Tadashi to his feet and pushed the three of them to follow Fred in.

“Give us a minute,” she said.

Hiro felt his ribcage shrink slightly. He was about to get a telling-off about being rude to their guest and a bruise for being an awful host. And then he’d have to go in shame-faced and pull Too-Tall Tadashi off to the side and apologize for the dirty looks and wiping Chex onto him and sit there awkwardly for the rest of the night and tolerate his presence. It made him grimace just to think about it.

Once the glass door to the mansion was safely shut, Gogo eyed him as she pulled a tissue out of her pocket. “You’ve got it bad.”

“I wasn’t trying to be rude to Tadashi—”

“More like super creepy.”

That stopped him. “Wait, wait, what?”

Instead of answering him, she first blew a small yellow bubble and bit down, popping it before spitting it out in the tissue. “You were staring at him, like, all night. I think you came on a little strong.”

“Woah, WHAT?”

“I know you’re new at this, but you might want to tone it down a little. It’s not like he’s going to only be here for tonight.”

“Hold on wait _GOGO_ -“

“So try a little finesse. Honey can show you.”

“ _WHAT?!_ ”

She shot him a thumbs-up and took off, jogging towards the light and leaving Hiro very alone, very confused, and with a sinking feeling that his odd-numbered group of nerds is about to adopt a straggly stranger into the fold.

And he wouldn’t stand for it.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been 9 months since I've written and I don't have a beta reader except for a sufficiently bribed sister so if you see anything that needs fixing or could you improvements please tell me! I appreciate it!
> 
> If you saw the "original" (read: shitty) version of this that I uploaded at 2AM and removed when in a more rational state of mind: I'm sorry.
> 
> ((I also had to retype this chapter 5 times so PLEASE FORGIVE ME IF I CAN'T CHANGE THE TITLE I'M SO SORRY AND SO FRUSTRATED))


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